I've been building robots for the past twelve years and it's a lot of fun and sometimes it feels useful, but robotics projects tend to take a really long time and a huge amount of organized, focused effort to deliver. Anyone who works on this kind of stuff needs a parallel creative outlet that's more easy and instant, that can deliver a dopamine hit in less than six months. I've done a bit of carpentry in the past, but now I live in a small apartment in San Francisco with nowhere to make messes. So mainly I do a lot of cooking. I have a dedicated room to do it in, I can finish a project in anywhere from fifteen minutes to four hours, and then I get to eat it. I do occasionally (okay, frequently) daydream about quitting my software job and enrolling in cooking school, but I think I would regret that. Maybe I'll do it someday just for fun, not for a career.
One thing in particular that I love, that has profoundly changed the way I cook in recent years, is the unbelievable quality and variety of fresh produce available in San Francisco. I grew up in Texas, grassland, where the #1 and #2 agricultural products are hay and alfalfa. At the grocery stores there you can buy the subset of produce that is durable enough to spend weeks in refrigerated warehouses and trucks as it is shipped to Texas from the other places where it's grown. You're not going to get much of anything that's actually fresh. (There are rare exceptions. HEB's logistics are legendary and Central Market is a god-send if you're lucky enough to live near one. Whole Foods used to be outstanding before Amazon bought it and ruined it.) But the fruits and vegetables that you can get at a small local organic grocery co-op or farmer's market in San Francisco are two levels above that. I had never had fresh brussels sprouts, or apricots, or buttercup squash, fava beans, oak leaf lettuce, olallieberries, delicata squash, a dozen varieties of pears, plums, pluots, fifteen varieties of citrus (peaking right now, January), and dozens of other fruits, vegetables, or legumes before coming here. I didn't even realize most of them existed. I'm unbelievably spoiled now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to leave California.
The other thing that has revolutionized my cooking in the past few years is iterative practice. If you want to get better at a particular skill, you need to practice that particular skill, repeatedly. If you want to get better at a particular dish or cooking technique, you need to practice it repeatedly. So a few times per year I'll pick a dish I want to perfect and I'll cook it and eat it over an over, not every day, but several times in several months, taking notes and improving it each time. And I store all those notes in a gitlab repo.
So just because I haven't had any robotics or other engineering projects to talk about in a while, here are some things I've cooked recently:
(sorry, no picture available)
Travis' Go-To Brussels Sprouts Side Dish
- fresh brussels sprouts
- shallots
- cooking apples (Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Granny Smith, Fuji, ...)
- olive oil
- salt
- lemon juice
Wash everything. Slice everything ~3mm thick. Toss everything in a frying pan with olive oil and salt, red pepper if you like. Saute until apples start to break down. Season with lemon juice.
Lesson learned: I don't know, this just pairs with almost anything. It's savory, sweet, sour, bitter, extremely simple and easy and cheap and flavorful. I got this recipe from some Blue Apron-style meal-in-a-box that someone gave me and I've made it dozens of times since then.
Basic Chicken Paella
- chicken thighs, 2, chopped into chunks
- green beans, large handful, ends clipped and washed
- butter beans, handful, fresh or fully cooked
- tomato, one large, grated
- saffron, one large pinch
- Spanish paprika, ~1tbsp
- water, 2.5c
- rosemary, 1-2 large sprigs
- arborio rice, 1c
- salt, to taste
- lemon
Heat pan very hot with oil, just enough to cover the entire bottom with a very thin layer. Fry chicken until browned all over. Fry beans for a few minutes until very softened. Fry garlic for a minute. Add tomato and spices. Add water and rosemary. Simmer low for 20 minutes and season to taste. Add rice, stir once, and let simmer low for 20 minutes. Garnish with lemon.
Lessons learned: Paella is overrated. If you google-search "paella", you'll get hundreds of photos of paella in giant paella pans and zero photos of paella on a plate or being eaten. It looks good on instagram more than it tastes good. It's good, mind you, I like it, but the last several times I've made I was always disappointed. It wasn't really worth the effort. I've decided jambalaya is definitely the better all-in-one rice dish and from now on, anytime I think "I should make paella", hopefully I'll remember to just make jambalaya instead.
Karaage
- chicken thighs, 2, deboned
- garlic, 1 clove
- ginger, equivalent of 2-3 cloves
- soy sauce, 2tsp
- rice wine vinegar, 2tsp
- salt, 1tsp
- white pepper, 0.5tsp
- sesame oil, 1tsp
Debone chicken, cut each thigh in half through thin center, cut small half in half and large half into thirds. Mix chicken with marinade.
- flour, 1tbsp
- corn starch, 1tbsp
Mix flours into marinade. Let marinate for 1hr.
- flour, 70g
- corn starch, 70g
- oil, 1 pint
Mix flours together. Dredge chicken and let sit while oil heats up. Heat oil to 170C. Fry half of chicken for 3 minutes, then set aside. Fry other half of chicken for 3 minutes. Heat oil to 185C. Fry half of chicken for 1 minute, then set aside. Fry other half of chicken for 1 minute.
Lessons learned: Fried chicken is one of my favorite foods. I've drastically reduced my meat consumption over the years but I still make this at least once or twice a year. I've developed what I consider to be an extremely well-rounded recipe loosely based on Marcus Samuellson's recipe. I've streamlined it quite a bit over the years but it's still pretty complex. Two different marinades, lots of steps. So I was amazed when I went to Japan recently and tried Japanese fried chicken, which is super simple and amazingly good. It's seasoned primarily with ginger and it's extremely light, simple, and aromatic. It's more of a side dish than a main course, but nothing's stopping you from just eating a pile of it on its own. I'll make this again. Traditionally it's paired with a pile of shaved fresh cabbage, seasoned with lemon. I also tossed the cabbage in a bit of tahini. I got that idea from a Japanese restaurant in Seattle.
Butter Bean Kale Salad
- Kale, chopped into bite-sized pieces
- Butter beans, fully cooked and seasoned ahead of time, then seared
- Salt
- Parmesan
- Lemon
Sear the butter beans in oil, season with a bit of salt and red pepper if you like, toss with kale, then top with parmesan and lemon.
Lessons learned: I eat this salad all the time, especially whenever Rancho Gordo sends me giant butter beans. I can't remember where I got the recipe. But it's quick and easy and it pairs with almost anything, and it can actually be pretty filling on its own. Just take the time to chop the kale into small and consistent-sized pieces. No one wants to try to twist up an eight-inch-long string of kale or awkwardly rotate a half-leaf into their mouths.
Cheeseburger and Fries
Fries
- Yukon Gold potatoes
- frying oil
- salt
Peel potatoes, then slice into ~1/2in-thick fries. Boil water, do not salt, then boil fries for ~20 minutes until they soften and just barely start to break apart, then carefully remove from water and set on a rack or baking sheet to cool and dry. Place potatoes in freezer for a few minutes. Heat oil to 350ºF and fry for ~5 minutes, then remove and place back on rack or paper towels to cool (and drip/soak up oil). Place back in freezer for a few minutes. Heat oil to 360-370ºF, then fry for another 2 minutes. Remove fries, place on paper towels (paper towels will absorb more oil than letting drip dry on a rack), let sit for a minute then put into a bowl and toss with salt.
Burgers
- beef, 1/3lb per burger, 80/20 or 90/10 grass-fed beef
- bun, a freshly baked bun or roll, something very firm (and under no circumstances brioche)
- Kraft American Cheese slices, 2 per burger (not "cheese food" wrapped slices, and not organic anything, this needs to be the real deal)
- butter
- salt
- pepper
Weigh out 1/3lb (150g) of beef, roll into a ball. Heat frying pan with butter, toast buns until light brown and crispy on the inside. Turn vent fan to high, be aware of where your smoke detectors are located. Heat pans until smoking, then add beef and smash aggressively with hard spatula until patty is slightly larger than bun. Season generously with salt and pepper. Cook for 2 minutes. Carefully scrape patty off of pan and flip, then press aggressively back onto pan. Season this side generously with salt and pepper, then place one slice of cheese on top. Let cook for 1-2 more minutes, depending on preference. Carefully scrape burger off of pan again, flip over, and place on rack or cutting board. Place second slice of cheese on top of other side (or place both on the same side, up to you). Let sit for 2 minutes. Put burger on bun and serve immediately. You can cook fries through their second batch of frying while this is happening.
Lessons learned: As I said, I have drastically reduced my meat consumption over the years, but I do make cheeseburgers probably once per year. For the past few years, that has been my only consumption of beef. To be honest I've never been a huge beef fan, but a really good cheeseburger is a thing of beauty. It doesn't need iceberg lettuce or flavorless grocery store greenhouse tomatoes. It doesn't need ketchup or mayonnaise or mustard or pickles. All it needs is a crispy, well toasted bun (absolutely not brioche under any circumstances, sugar has no place in a cheeseburger, Kaiser rolls work really well), well seasoned grass-fed beef seared heavily on both sides, and double American cheese. And the triple-cooked fries, served with ketchup and sriracha or mayonnaise, are amazing as well.
Tuscan Vegetable Soup
Infused oil
- garlic
- rosemary
- sage
- black pepper
Crush all together in mortar. Add olive oil, mix well. Let sit overnight.
Legumes
- cannellini beans
- sorana beans
- chickpeas
- garlic, one clove
- sage, two leaves
- olive oil
Bake sorana beans and chickpeas with seasonings until fully cooked but still firm. Boil cannellini beans with seasonings until falling apart then puree with infused oil and olive oil.
Vegetables
- lacinato kale, separate stems from leaves
- savoy cabbage, separate core from leaves
- chard, separate roots, stems, leaves
- spinach
- leeks, separate tops/roots
- celery, separate roots/leaves
- yellow potatoes, peel skins
- carrots, peel outside and ends
- green beans, haricots vert and flat beans, remove ends
- onion, cut off ends and skin
- zucchini, cut off ends
- farro (or barley, millet, rice)
- fennel seeds
Soak, scrub, clean everything. Use inedible parts of vegetables to make stock. Chop hard vegetables into regularly sized small chunks, chop leaves into regularly sized squares. Saute farro in infused oil, then cook fully in broth, 20-25 minutes. Heat infused oil with fennel seeds. Add celery, leek, onion, carrots, a spoon of broth, salt, cook 5mins. Add chard stems, green beans, potatoes, cabbage, kale, another spoon of broth, cook 5mins covered. Add zucchini, chard leaves, spinach, another spoon of broth, black pepper, cook 5mins. Add farro, chickpeas, sorano beans, and cannellini emulsion. Simmer, season to taste
Let cool, then serve with olive oil.
Lessons Learned: I like vegetable soup and I'm always looking for ways to get more vegetables and less animal products into my diet, but American vegetable soup recipes tend to be pretty simple tomato-flavored thin soups with random vegetables added just to fill it out. So I was thrilled to find this recipe in a youtube video from some Tuscan restaurant. It took several hours to make (it was a michelin restaurant) but it was terrific soup. Very bean- and herb-forward with lots of green vegetable flavor. I'll definitely make this again.
Jambalaya
- dark meat chicken
- smoked sausage
- roux, very dark, 1c
- onion
- celery
- bell pepper
- garlic
- chicken stock
- bay
- parsley
- cayenne
- rice, jasmine or American long-grain, 1:2.5
- green onions
- butter
- lemon juice
This is basically just Isaac Toups' recipe. Sear chicken. Make very dark roux (color of Hersheys chocolate). Saute mirepoix then garlic. Add stock and spices, simmer for an hour, season. Add rice, chicken, sausage, bake at 350ºF for 45 minutes. Add green onions, butter, lemon juice, mix.
Lessons Learned: Jambalaya is better than Paella. It's simpler and easier and more flavorful. And it beautifully demonstrates the power of a good roux. Roux is the main seasoning. I make this a few times per year. I'm brainstorming a vegetarian version. The chicken stock is pretty essential, but I wonder what you could do with a good vegetable stock.